128 Observations on Ranunculus Ficaria. 



opposite side of the road — about nine feet. When I saw this 

 place at the end of April, it presented a perfectly gorgeous 

 display of Celandine bloom ; the flowers in their thousands 

 were thrown wide open to the strong sunshine. A few yards 

 further on, I came upon another expanse, surprisingly different. 

 Here, in precisely similar relationship to hedge and ditch, 

 there was scarcely a single flower. General growth was 

 luxuriant and tubers were borne plentifully. The two strips, 

 throughout their whole length and breadth, benefitted equally 

 from the full day's sunshine. They were equally moist and 

 they gave equal facilities to insect visitors. I could find no 

 differing factor in the two environments, and I could find no 

 indication that the beds were of different ages. There was no 

 means of finding out if the two parts of the hedge had been 

 cut in different years. On going back to the brilliant bed, I 

 found on closer examination that it was by no means uniform. 

 In some groups of plants, blossoms were thrown up most pro- 

 fusely, but no tubers. Side by side with these other smaller 

 and more readily overlooked clumps mustered few flowers 

 but many tubers. A third variety consisted of normal flower- 

 bearing specimens, with the unusual accompaniment of a num- 

 ber of aerial tubers. 



It was a possibility that the second strip mentioned had 

 not been free from the shade of the hedge for as long a period 

 as the first, and that its vegetation had not had time to accom- 

 modate itself to the new condition ; on the same supposition, 

 some of the examples in the flowering area might have been 

 in a transition stage. It might be noted, however, that the 

 few plants growing under the tall hedges near by were very 

 free-flowering. 



(e) At the bottom of a deep, wet ditch, on dark sodden 

 leaf-mould, there grew only a few rather rank-conditioned 

 Celandines. No flowers Were present ; the leaves were remark- 

 ably crinkled and there was a goodly crop of tubers. Eighteen 

 months ago, several of these were transplanted into good 

 garden soil and into a situation where they were fully exposed 

 to light. Last summer, they came up in a miserable fashion, 

 the whole extent above the ground being no more than an inch 

 and a half. They bore no flowers : the leaves were very small, 

 but they were still crinkled ; aerial tubers persisted, now quite 

 close to the soil. 



(/) Throughout a small area amongst the grass surrounding 

 the stump of a tree on a lawn, small, compact specimens of 

 R. Ficaria were to be found. They resembled the plants of 

 the grassland association except that they possessed a system 

 of tubers arising in their leaves. Presumably, they had existed 

 as free-growing forms beneath the shade of the tree and the 

 tubers were relics of that time, which they had retained. 



Naturalist, 



